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Far Cry 5 details revealed in focus group

by on23 May 2017


Middle America meets cult-like Doomsdayers with mountainous backdrop


On Monday, details surrounding the upcoming fifth installment in the Far Cry franchise made their rounds on Reddit ahead of the game’s Friday reveal.

A Reddit user under the name FarCry5-throwaway created a temporary account to disclose some of the information he or she discovered by participating in a recent Ubisoft focus group. While the report misses some key details about the main characters and may not represent a completely accurate view of Ubisoft’s intentions, there is enough information to suggest that Far Cry 5 has a Doomsday-like thematic element featuring a religious cult branded with assault rifles in small-town, present day Montana.

According to the report, the “general thrust” of the game is that it will feature the as-yet unrevealed protagonist taking on a “Jim Jones or David Koresh-like religious cult” using modern-day weaponry and modern-day vehicles. As for setting, the author cites a small town in Montana “plus a hilly, mountainous backdrop”.

The promotional videos shown to the focus group featured the protagonist walking into the church of an empty small town, only to discover the congregation is “made up of everyone in town staring in rapt attention at a shirtless lunatic leader brandishing an assault rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other”.

“The overall feeling I got from the animatic videos we saw is that they're really playing up a sense of dread. This is a small town and is filled with small-town sensibilities, the kind of place where God's word is law, and the sense you get is that the antagonist-preacher found a perfect place for his quasi-religion to take root. […] There were also some oblique references to this religion sharing some commonalities with Scientology, and I wonder if those will make the cut.”

As for weaponry and vehicles, the author notes that Ubisoft decided to reuse many of the existing elements within Far Cry 3 and 4 – ATVs, Jeeps, shotguns, assault rifles, etc. The characters in this game, seem to inherit unexpected roles based on their backgrounds. For instance, the author notes the second-in-command antagonist is “basically being portrayed as Tom Cruise – an A-list celebrity who became a ranking member of the high council.” Another is a female mechanic who gives the main character his missions, and is presumably a love interest. There are several small-town characters listed in the description as well, including an “old burnt-out hippie character” among other support characters.

The author notes that the Far Cry 5 focus group was mostly involved in “gauging immediate reactions to short clips and still images.” These included questions such as character likability, campaign mode enthusiasm, and overall interest in playing a game where the protagonist is pitted against “a Branch Davidian-like cult”.

Ubisoft is expected to release a full-reveal trailer on May 26th, and the company has revealed that the game will be released before the end of the current fiscal year. In other words, it will be ready before the end of March 2018 and should be available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

For now, the company has released a 42-second teaser that gives a few glimpses of its backdrop in Montana, the fourth largest state in the union, in fictional Hope County:

Last modified on 23 May 2017
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